Going Down, Chapter Ten: Starry Night
Hey, y'all--Sorry about being even later than I promised yesterday. It's been a bit of a traumatic day, as you already know. But here it is; hope you enjoy and thanks for reading.
Pairing: Ennis/Jack
Rating: NC-17
Credit: Annie Proulx and Diana Ossana & Larry McMurtry. Thanks also to all the many incredibly talented writers out there who inspired me to finally write something myself-Madlori, Jenna, montana-crows, Cathalin, midwest-girl, debutante9, maidenofthesea, marakeshsparrow, louisev, amtamburo, midget-size, testa-dura, and many others. Finally, thank you very very much to Christine, my friend and beta and fellow ennisjack aficionado.
Feedback: Any and all appreciated, at my lj or at shieldmaid@gmail.com.
Special thanks to Em this week, for the emergency beta. :)
Dedication: To Maggie, who inspires me every day.
Chapter Ten: Starry Night
Dark and dangerous like a secret
That gets whispered in a hush
When I wake the things I dreamt about you
Last night make me blush.
And you kiss me like a lover
Then you sting me like a viper
I go follow to the river
Play your memory like a piper
And I feel it like a sickness
How this love is killing me
I’d walk into the fingers
Of your fire willingly.
And dance the edge of sanity
I’ve never been this close . . .
-Indigo Girls, “Ghost”
Ennis wiped the sweat off his face with one forearm and looked with tired resignation at the heavy smears of soot on his once-white sleeve. It didn’t make a lick of difference; sweat was pouring down his back and chest in rivers, soaking his clothes, squelching in his socks as he walked. He handed the orange bucket he was holding to the man in front of him, reached to the man behind him to get the next, and passed it along. He’d been standing in this line for hours, part of a group, half rangers and half mountain residents, that was trying to beat back the hungry tide of flames. They seemed to have made some headway at last; he could no longer see the leading edge of the fire, just a choking black smoke that rose endlessly from the silhouetted treeline.
He turned back to get another bucket and was surprised to see the line behind him breaking up, people heading to the vehicles parked haphazardly along the road. The rangers were converging in a straggling group off to one side. Ennis decided to head that way to see if he could lend a hand somewhere else in this mess. Might get him closer to finding out exactly where Jack had ended up.
The rangers turned toward Ennis as he approached, their khaki uniforms blackened with the same soot that he’d been wearing since he stepped out of his truck all those hours-felt like a lifetime-before. He nodded at the one who seemed to be in charge, carrying a clipboard, and said, “There somethin’ else I can do up here? You all movin’ to ‘nother location now?”
Clipboard gave him a weary smile and said, “Yes, we’re heading up the road about half a mile or so. We need any extra hands we can get, so if you’re willing, Mr. . . . ?”
Ennis was startled to hear that the speaker was a woman. “Del Mar. Ennis Del Mar. I got a truck I came up in, so I can help with anythin’ needs carryin’.”
“Oh, Mr. Del Mar. We spoke on the phone last night, I think. You called for Jack Twist?” She looked at him with a level, measured gaze, calm in spite of her damp, tangled hair and nearly unrecognizable uniform.
“Uh, yeah,” Ennis replied, feeling suddenly too aware of all these strange faces. What they might think, him calling a man who wasn’t his brother or father. “Came up to visit, but . . . found the fire instead.”
“Well, I’m Julia Ringfeder, the station dispatcher. Jack’s up the mountain a mile or two, working at one of the points where the fire was threatening the main road. He was in one of the first groups to get up there, but from what I hear things are in pretty good shape now. If you come with us, you’ll most likely meet up with him before too much longer.” She paused, looking back at the group around her. “Can you take Steve and Andy in your truck, so we can rendezvous at the next mile marker, find out what needs to be done next? Sound OK?”
“Sure ‘nough,” Ennis said. Two men came forward, nodded at Ennis, and they set off toward the road.
When the three of them reached the truck, Ennis reached into his right hip pocket for the keys, panicked for a moment when they weren’t there, and realized that he must have left them in the ignition when he’d arrived. Pure copper terror had risen up his throat and into his mouth when he’d first seen the flames eating away at the thick bank of trees on both sides of the road. He’d slammed the truck into the first clear spot he could find, grabbed his jacket off the seat, and bolted for the nearest group of laboring firefighters, barely remembering to close the door behind him.
Now he got into the driver’s seat, and first Andy and then Steve crowded in beside him. “Everyone OK?” Ennis asked, and they were off, joining the line of trucks and cars bumping their way farther up the scorching tar road. The air smelled like burnt sugar, even with the windows rolled up, and he had to keep flicking the windshield wipers on to clear off the ash that sifted thickly from the sky. “Where we goin’ exactly, you guys know?” he asked, stealing a quick glance to the side.
“Yeah, just a little ways up here on the left side. See if we can get a place to park, I guess,” Steve said from the door. He had rolled down the window a bit to get some air, and fresh ash was drifting in to form bizarre snowflake patterns on the seat upholstery.
“Sounds good,” Ennis said, turning his attention back to the road. Traffic was moving slowly; that was certainly understandable, given the circumstances, but he was feeling anxious to get out again and see what he could do to find Jack.
“So you’re a friend a Jack’s?” Andy this time, looking at Ennis from under his ranger’s hat.
“Yeah.” Ennis wondered if more explanation was necessary, decided against it.
“You guys know each other from school or what?”
“No, uh . . . we used to work together. Herdin’ sheep, one summer.” Ennis ran a hand back through his hair, then tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“Hmm. Always figured Jack for college or somethin’. He’s a real smart guy.”
“Yeah, he is. I dunno. Probably coulda gone but didn’t have no money. Was always workin’, all the time I knew him.” Ennis surprised himself with this uncharacteristic outpouring of words, but then figured, what the hell? He would never see these people again after this day.
“Don’t I know it. Story a my life, too.” Suddenly Andy leaned forward, craning to see through the smeared windshield. “I think that’s it, up ahead a little. See that green sign there, with the reflectors on the bottom? Get a parkin’ spot near there, ‘n we can see what needs doin’.”
Ennis pulled the truck up to the shoulder, edging it in behind a green van with “Forest Service - Emergency” stenciled on the back in white letters. He turned off the ignition, remembering to pocket the keys this time, and they all clambered out.
Walking toward the group clustered near the sign a few yards ahead of the truck, Ennis was startled to feel a hand on his shoulder. He turned to find Andy beside him again.
“Don’t worry, Ennis,” he said. “I’m sure Jack’s fine. I heard from Julia that he went up with Randall-he’s our boss, the station director-when the fire first got called in. That’s the van they took, actually.”
“Really?” Ennis said, looking at it. He would have passed it by without a second glance, but now the knowledge that Jack had so lately ridden inside it endowed it with a peculiar kind of radiance for him. He felt, ridiculously, like going over to put his hand on the passenger’s-side door.
“Yeah. You two’ll be drinkin’ a couple a cold ones ‘n hittin’ on the chicks in some bar in Taos in no time.” Andy clapped Ennis on the shoulder and moved past him to join the group.
Ennis looked down at the ground for a moment, collecting himself, then marched forward, shoving his hands into his pockets. There was no problem, none at all. As far as Andy was concerned, he and Jack were nothing to each other, really. Just a couple of ordinary guys, looking out for each other like friends were supposed to. Maybe he could mention he’d just seen Lureen the next time they all felt the need to shoot the shit.
“Ennis!” Julia smiled at him from her position near the mile marker, welcoming him into the group. “Glad you found us without too much trouble. Now what kind of experience do you have with emergency situations? Ever worked as an EMT or firefighter before?”
“No ma’am,” Ennis replied, wishing he had gone ahead and enlisted in Riverton’s volunteer fire brigade as Alma had been urging him to. The brigade was sponsored by First Presbyterian, and most of its volunteers were upstanding members of that congregation. During the one conversation he and Alma had had on the subject-more of an argument, really-he had muttered, “That fire ‘n brimstone crowd? Sounds like they got a perfect situation goin’ there already, no need for me to be interferin’,” and that had been the end of it. To Julia, he said, “Sure wish I had, though.”
Julia laughed. Somehow she had managed to wipe the sweat and dirt from her face and smooth her hair into a bun at the base of her neck since their last meeting, and now Ennis noticed that she was really quite a pretty girl. He didn’t spend much time admiring women these days-hadn’t really had much of an eye for anyone since he’d met Jack, to tell the truth-but Julia was something else.
“I’m just kidding, Ennis. The rangers are all trained firefighters, and about half of us are also EMTs, so we’re covered on that end. What we need from you, and from the other civilians, is manpower. We need people to carry water, move vehicles, bring in more supplies from the station when we run low up here, maybe transport someone to a hospital in El Prado if there are cases of smoke inhalation. Think you can manage that?” She was looking at him with wide, patient eyes. They were a rich dark blue. Like Jack’s.
“Yeah, no problem.” Ennis looked down at his feet, shuffled around a little, looked up again. “Thanks for lettin’ me tag along here. Figured there was no point in leavin’ if I could help out at all ‘n still get a chance a seein’ Jack somewhere in here.”
“Oh, you don’t need to have any worries on that score. I’ll make sure you get to see Jack sometime soon. You’ve got my word on it.” Julia looked into Ennis’s eyes for a moment, then back down at her clipboard. “For right now, let’s see . . . why don’t you come with me? I’ve got to do a check on everyone up here, make sure we’ve got an accurate count of who’s working at each point along the road, see if anyone needs anything. This way I can keep my records here and send you back for supplies, emergency kits, or whatever else. Sound OK?”
“Yeah.” Ennis shoved his hands into his pocket again, and they set off along the hot blacktop. After about fifty yards, he spotted a group of rangers, their pale hats caked with ash, stamping a line through the blackened brush at the side of the road. “You know those guys?” he asked.
“Yes,” Julia said. “That looks like John Schultz’s group. Let’s go over and make sure everyone’s doing all right.” She ran up to a tall, gangly man on the end who seemed to be giving orders to the others and grabbed his arm. He turned and leaned down to speak to her. After a minute or so she nodded and motioned Ennis over.
When Ennis reached them, the man looked at him expectantly, holding out a hand for him to shake. “John Schultz,” he said. “Schultzie, more like. ‘S what everyone calls me, anyway. Thanks for comin’ to help us out, friend.”
“No problem,” Ennis said. “Jus’ sorry to see things in such a state.”
Schultzie sighed. “Yeah, me too. It’s my first week a bein’ a full-fledged ranger, jus’ got my certification last Friday. Guess I can’t complain they’re not usin’ my full potential.” He chuckled a little.
“So,” Julia interjected. “What do you guys need now? Or are you set for supplies?”
“No, we need stuff all right. Let’s see . . . think we could use ‘bout two, three more emergency kits-had a couple a bad burns, some scrapes from branches, you know the drill. Also need some more masks, seein’s though they’re all covered with ash now. And you guys got any water in there? This is awful hot work.” Schultzie looked back at the line that was now moving forward without him. “Hey, you guys,” he shouted. “Take five, why doncha? We’re gonna get some more water up here in a minute.”
“What’re you doin’?” Ennis couldn’t resist asking.
“Lookin’ for any residual inflammatories. You know-anythin’ that coulda started the fire in the first place, any live embers, that kinda thing. We’re still not real sure what got things goin’, ‘n we gotta be real careful ‘til the forensics guys get up here. They’re comin’ in from Taos ‘n it might take ‘em a while to get through the roadblocks.”
“OK,” Julia said, flipping through a couple of pages. “Get all your people over here and we’ll take a head count. In the meantime, Ennis can go back to the emergency van and get the kits, the masks, some water bottles. Oh, and Ennis? There’s a box marked ‘sandwiches’ under the driver’s seat. Get about ten out and bring those too. You can put everything into one of the canvas bags hanging from the hooks on the side.”
“Sounds good,” Ennis said. “It unlocked?”
“Good point.” Julia smiled at him. “Here are the keys; lock up afterward and don’t lose them! We’ll be right here when you get back.”
Ennis jogged down to the van, reciting in his head as he went: the number of people in the group, including Schultzie and Julia, the exact items they had asked for. The seat Jack had last sat in, the door handle he had last touched.
Inside the van, the supplies were packed into neatly labeled crates and boxes. Ennis gathered what he needed and fitted it into a gray canvas bag with a green “FS” stenciled on one side. He allowed his hand a brief brush against the passenger’s seat, and that was all. Slinging the bag over one shoulder, he slid the long door closed and locked it carefully.
Everyone was glad to see Ennis return with the supplies and food. The men tore into the sandwiches, not forgetting to offer Ennis one, which he ate with a glad appetite. Julia accepted half a sandwich and ate it between transmissions on her walkie-talkie. After a few minutes, the group, fitted out with fresh masks, headed back to the burn line and began walking it again.
Julia and Ennis continued on toward the other groups of tired, sweaty, bewildered but still cheerful rangers and volunteers. Ennis couldn’t begin to imagine how long they had been pacing out short distances along that stretch of road. At each location, Julia checked off each ranger’s name on a typed list, added in the names of all the volunteers, and had the group leader sign the list. She and Ennis carried supplies, bandaged minor wounds, brought food and water, offered what comfort they could. Ennis learned after his first trip back to the van to bring at least twice the supplies he thought they needed so that Julia could distribute them while he was going back for more. He moved the van again and again, trying to position it where it could do the most good without getting in anyone’s way. They saw few serious injuries but several men were wheezing with smoke inhalation and one had broken an arm when a fire-damaged tree fell on him. Ennis had been ready to drive him to the hospital, in spite of his reluctance to leave the area, but Schultzie, whose group was now filtering up to help some others, had gone in his stead.
Now Julia stood a few yards away from Ennis, looking through the van’s open side door. She was talking into her radio again, but this call seemed a pleasanter one; she was smiling and nodding her head, and once he even heard her laugh. Ennis sighed and stretched, putting his hands on the small of his back. As he tipped his head back, he saw that the sky was tinted a faint pink, shading to indigo near the horizon. It was sunset.
“Ennis!” Julia called suddenly. “Come here, would you?” She said something into the radio, smiled, and looked down at the ground. The toe of her boot traced a circle, around and around a chunk of gravel lying on the sandy, blackened ground.
Puzzled, Ennis joined Julia and looked at the pattern she had gouged in the dirt.
“Yes,” Julia said again, speaking into her radio. “OK, I do . . . I will. Yes, I know! OK, I’ll hold on.” She turned to Ennis. “I was just talking to Mark Goodpastor. His unit met up with Randall Malone’s about an hour ago.” She beamed at Ennis radiantly and waited for him to respond.
“Uh . . .,” Ennis said, uncertain about what the proper reaction should be. “That’s good, right?”
“Oh!” Julia exclaimed. “I forgot. You two didn’t meet yet. Randall is the coordinator of Jack’s rescue group. The two groups have been taking a break together. Mark said he shared a bottle of water with Jack a few minutes ago, in fact. He’s going to get him now so you can talk to him over the radio.”
Relief washed through Ennis, so strongly that his knees trembled. He had to breathe in and out a few times before he could answer Julia. “Well,” he said. “That’s good news, real good. I’m glad to hear that.”
“Here,” she said. “Just wait a minute or two, and Jack should come on. He knows someone wants to speak to him, but he doesn’t know who. I thought it might be nice if he got a little surprise now; he’s had a rough day, from what I hear.”
“He’s OK, though, right?” Ennis asked, too tired to worry about guarding his words. The hand holding the radio to his ear shook a little.
“Yes,” Julia said. She looked directly into Ennis’s eyes again. “He’s fine. And I have a feeling that he’ll be anxious to talk to you too. I saw how he looked when he got off the phone with you last night. He’s a good-natured guy, always cracking a joke and eager to help out, but I’ve never seen him looking really happy since he’s been here. I gather that things weren’t going that well at home before he left. But last night he had the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, and his eyes were sparkling. A little red around the edges, maybe, but full of joy.” She patted Ennis on the shoulder and began to move away, then turned back. “Be kind to him, OK? Jack’s a special man. I haven’t known him long, and it’s easy for me to see that.”
“I plan to,” Ennis mumbled, turning the radio over in his hands. Could he really do this, talk to Jack with all these people around? He had things to say-would he be able to say them after a day like the one they had both just passed, so close together and yet so far away? Longing for one another yet separated by much more than a couple of miles. He looked up to find Julia’s eyes on him. That was OK. The blue in them, so like Jack’s, steadied him somehow. “What should I do with the radio when I’m finished?”
“You can bring it over to the 24-mile marker. That’s where we’re rendezvousing until we get orders from the regional station about what to do next. In fact, you might be able to meet up with Jack there later on. And don’t worry-I set the other channels to block, so you’ve got a private transmission, like your own phone line.” She winked at him, and walked away.
The radio crackled and stuttered. Ennis held it up to his ear and waited patiently, as Julia had told him to do, and finally he heard a faint response. “That’s a ten-four . . . OK, yeah, I got it.” Pause. Then, louder, “Hello?”
“Jack? It’s Ennis.”
“Ennis?” Jack’s astonishment and, Ennis dearly hoped, happiness were clearly audible even through the regular pops of static. “What you doin’ up here?”
“I came to see you, dumbass. ‘Member that? Got up here this mornin’, ‘n found everythin’ in an uproar.” Ennis chuckled at his own word choice. “So to speak. Anyway.” He paused. “How you doin’?”
“I’m OK. . . . We had some near misses there, got surrounded by fire once ‘n I didn’t know what we was gonna do, but turned out all right.”
“Sure glad to hear that.”
Jack was silent for a moment. “Oh hell,” he finally said. “Too damn tired to hide what I mean to say today. Been missin’ you, Ennis. Real bad.”
“Me too, bud,” Ennis replied, his words squeezing past his suddenly clogged throat. “Me too.” He coughed into his fist, trying to clear his throat, but then was unable to stop coughing, his lungs complaining at the hours-long onslaught of ash and tarry resin filtering through the air.
“Hey,” Jack said, anxiety chopping his speech into short bursts of sound. “Hey. Ennis? You OK? Need some help? I can call someone up real quick, get ‘em to take me down there. Got some EMT trainin’ last week.”
“No,” Ennis managed at last, forcing himself to breathe more slowly. “I’m all right. Jus’ been breathin’ in the same crap as you all day. Guess this teaches me a lesson, don’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“Need to cut out the smokin’. Hate to think this’s what my lungs’ll feel like one day.” He sighed, swung around slowly to see if anyone was standing nearby, and sat down on the ground next to one of the few trees still standing at this location. Leaning his back against the trunk, he sighed again. “Ain’t had a smoke since last night anyway, I don’t think. That’s ‘bout as good as quittin’ for me already.”
“I told you I quit ‘fore I left. Never felt as good as I do now. Except, well . . . you know.” Jack sighed, too, and fell silent.
Ennis sat listening to Jack’s breathing over the radio for a few moments, enjoying the familiar, comfortable silence that they had always been able to spin out between them. Though Jack had won his friendship with his nonstop conversation and over-the-top tomfoolery-rodeo-cowboy fuckup, he thought, and grinned-he had also known when to just let Ennis be. Especially after they had come to mean somewhat more to each other than two guys herding sheep generally did, Jack had a good sense of when Ennis might like to spend time resting with his head in Jack’s lap, looking up at the stars, or when he might like Jack to hold him for long, dream-still hours in the tent.
“So,” Jack finally said. “You mentioned last night you got somethin’ to say. Feel like sharin’ it now? Know you had a hard day ‘n all, though; I’d understand if maybe you just wanted to say hey and that was it.”
“No, uh . . . I got somethin’ to say, that’s the truth,” Ennis replied. His palms were sweating, and he clamped the radio between his ear and his shoulder so he could wipe his hands on his jeans.
“Yeah?”
“I got a story I been wantin’ to tell you, actually.” Ennis coughed again, briefly, and closed his eyes.
“A story?”
“Yeah . . . somethin’ that happened while we was campin’ back in June, actually.”
“OK.” Pause. “This a funny story or one that shows how much a fuckup yours truly really is? Got me singin’ one a those old hymns or fallin’ on my ass?”
“No, Jack,” Ennis said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It’s . . . serious, I guess. You ready to listen?”
“Yeah, I am. Sorry.”
“No,” Ennis said again. “I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s just that . . . I shoulda told you this before. Wanna make it up to you.”
A man in torn, blackened jeans and a blue parka was walking up the road toward Ennis, who tensed, waiting to be told that he needed to surrender the radio. When the man nodded briefly and continued past him, though, Ennis relaxed again.
“You still there, bud?” came Jack’s voice over the radio.
“Yeah. Listen, it’s nothin’ big, just somethin’ I thought you should know. Remember when you said you couldn’t sleep? That second mornin’ we was up on the mountain?”
“I do.”
“Well, you did drift off there, at least for a little while. Woke up ‘round dawn, and you was snugged up tight against my back. Had one arm around me, hand under my shirt.”
“Well, damn,” Jack laughed. “Gets cold up there at night!”
Jack’s hand resting against his bare skin, fingers tickling the line of hair that ran down his stomach and disappeared into his jeans. The stiffness of Jack’s morning erection pressing into his own ass.
“I just laid there for a while, listenin’ to you breathe. Wishin’ we never had to leave. Seemed like the place I spent my whole life tryin’ to get to.”
“Ennis.” Jack’s voice was husky now. “Means . . . means more’n I can say to hear that from you.”
“I took your hand, pulled it down a little farther. Put it, uh, down below.”
“You did, huh? You rascal.”
“Just stayed there for a while, feelin’ your hand on me. Your chest risin’ ‘n fallin’, ‘gainst my back. Could feel you wasn’t too sorry ‘bout bein’ that close to me, too, if you know what I mean.”
The warm weight of Jack’s hand pressed between his legs. His senses flaring into life: heart beating faster, breaths coming short and rapid, blood surging to his nether regions.
“Shoulda woken me up, coulda done somethin’ ‘bout it.”
“Seemed like all I needed at the time, though. You near me, the world wakin’ up ‘round us. There was . . . there was a kind a energy or somethin’, comin’ up through the ground.” Ennis pressed his lips together, frustrated. “Sounds kinda dumb like that, I know, but I could feel it. You was part of it, givin’ that energy to me.”
“So you just laid there, feelin’ good, ‘n that was it? That’s the story?”
“No, not ‘xactly. I turned around to face you, real slow, so’s not to wake you up or nothin’. I put my hand down, found your zipper, and mine too. I . . . I unzipped us both, and pulled up our shirts, and . . . held you. Wrapped my arms ‘round you. Just wanted to feel you that close to me, close as you could get. See if I could share that same energy or whatever it was with you, too. Put my heart ‘gainst yours.” Ennis squeezed his eyes shut, reliving the memory.
Jack’s body pressed to his, their bellies meeting in a hot firm line, their dicks melded like the sun. Ennis’s body crying out for release, his heart feeling peace at last.
Jack was silent for a moment; then Ennis heard him clear his throat. “Ennis, I don’t know what to say. I had no idea you was . . . feelin’ that way. Thank . . . thank you. For tellin’ me.” His voice was small and raspy.
“Well, I, uh, got lots a stories to tell you. Hope we still got time to do that. . . . For now, got somethin’ else to say, too.” Ennis’s heart was racing suddenly, and he could feel beads of sweat standing out on his forehead.
“Yeah?”
Ennis opened his eyes and saw a small group of rangers standing about a hundred yards up from him, talking and rummaging through their packs. “Well, . . . nothin’, I guess. Not nothin’, I mean, but . . . can wait ‘til I see you. Rather say it in person anyway.” He sniffed and armed sweat off his face.
“Gonna see you soon, though. Gonna hold you down ‘til you say it, just warnin’ you,” Jack said. Ennis could hear a smile in his voice. “I got the whole next day off, after we get the all-clear from regional. Randall says so. Whaddya say we meet back down at the station in ‘bout an hour?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I want. I . . . I’m lookin’ forward to it, Jack.” He stood up and looked around, careful not to jostle the radio. “I better go give the radio back to Julia now. She probably thinks I just walked off with it or somethin’.”
Jack laughed. “OK. See you in a bit, then. ‘N tell Julia I said hey. She’s quite a lady, ain’t she?”
“Yeah,” Ennis said. “She’s somethin’, all right.” He looked down at the ground, remembering. “Got blue eyes, like yours.”
“Don’t need to be jealous or nothin’ now, do I?”
“Dumbass.”
Jack chuckled. “OK, then, Ennis. See you.”
The radio crackled one last time, and the transmission cut off. Immediately Ennis could hear voices on other channels. He headed up to the point where Julia had said she’d meet him, walking slowly and thinking. How could he show Jack his mind was made up this time? How would their parting be different this time?
Ennis realized that Julia was nowhere in sight. Figuring she must have left on another errand, he chose a man wearing a silver badge on his uniform and tapped him on the shoulder. “‘Scuse me, sir. Lookin’ for Julia. She let me borrow this radio ‘n asked me to give it back up here.”
“Julia ain’t here right now. She hadta go get somethin’ from Mark Goodpastor. If you know what I mean.” He winked hugely at Ennis, his bloodshot eye seeming to twinkle with misplaced cheer. “I can take it, though.” He took the radio, then held out his other hand. “Randall Malone. Station director. And you are-?”
“Ennis Del Mar. Just came up to see a friend a mine, Jack Twist. Got caught in the middle a things, wanted to see if I could help out.” Ennis shook his hand.
“Jack, huh?” Randall was looking at him with an expression that Ennis couldn’t read. “Well, doubt if Jack’s gonna be able to see anyone here for a while.”
“Why’s that?” Ennis felt his recently revived spirits take a nose dive.
“Fire control duty. He’s comin’ with me to comb through the debris on peaks five and seven. Gotta see what kinda madman started this mess.” Randall grinned. Ennis could see flakes of ash on his front teeth.
“Sure I can’t talk to him for a minute ‘fore you leave?” Ennis was panicking, certain that he couldn’t wait another hour, much less an unspecified number of days, before seeing Jack again.
“But that’s what you been doin’, talkin’, am I right? No, Ennis, we’re already on our way out. Truth is, Jack’s left. Hung up the walkie-talkie and headed out. I’m goin’ to meet him right now. I’d ask you to come with-but official Service business, you know. Can’t.” He clapped Ennis on the shoulder, still grinning. “Be sure ‘n tell him you said howdy, though.” The radio already hung on his belt squawked; he brought it up to his ear, listened for a moment, then strode away.
Ennis looked after him, his shoulder burning where Randall had touched it. He was unable to move. The world spun on its axis, the planets rotated through their orbits, the sun illuminated first one side of the earth and then the other, bringing life to an endless series of days. But he was a star, fixed and hanging in space, his light having traveled through the cold, echoing emptiness millennia ago.
Pairing: Ennis/Jack
Rating: NC-17
Credit: Annie Proulx and Diana Ossana & Larry McMurtry. Thanks also to all the many incredibly talented writers out there who inspired me to finally write something myself-Madlori, Jenna, montana-crows, Cathalin, midwest-girl, debutante9, maidenofthesea, marakeshsparrow, louisev, amtamburo, midget-size, testa-dura, and many others. Finally, thank you very very much to Christine, my friend and beta and fellow ennisjack aficionado.
Feedback: Any and all appreciated, at my lj or at shieldmaid@gmail.com.
Special thanks to Em this week, for the emergency beta. :)
Dedication: To Maggie, who inspires me every day.
Chapter Ten: Starry Night
Dark and dangerous like a secret
That gets whispered in a hush
When I wake the things I dreamt about you
Last night make me blush.
And you kiss me like a lover
Then you sting me like a viper
I go follow to the river
Play your memory like a piper
And I feel it like a sickness
How this love is killing me
I’d walk into the fingers
Of your fire willingly.
And dance the edge of sanity
I’ve never been this close . . .
-Indigo Girls, “Ghost”
Ennis wiped the sweat off his face with one forearm and looked with tired resignation at the heavy smears of soot on his once-white sleeve. It didn’t make a lick of difference; sweat was pouring down his back and chest in rivers, soaking his clothes, squelching in his socks as he walked. He handed the orange bucket he was holding to the man in front of him, reached to the man behind him to get the next, and passed it along. He’d been standing in this line for hours, part of a group, half rangers and half mountain residents, that was trying to beat back the hungry tide of flames. They seemed to have made some headway at last; he could no longer see the leading edge of the fire, just a choking black smoke that rose endlessly from the silhouetted treeline.
He turned back to get another bucket and was surprised to see the line behind him breaking up, people heading to the vehicles parked haphazardly along the road. The rangers were converging in a straggling group off to one side. Ennis decided to head that way to see if he could lend a hand somewhere else in this mess. Might get him closer to finding out exactly where Jack had ended up.
The rangers turned toward Ennis as he approached, their khaki uniforms blackened with the same soot that he’d been wearing since he stepped out of his truck all those hours-felt like a lifetime-before. He nodded at the one who seemed to be in charge, carrying a clipboard, and said, “There somethin’ else I can do up here? You all movin’ to ‘nother location now?”
Clipboard gave him a weary smile and said, “Yes, we’re heading up the road about half a mile or so. We need any extra hands we can get, so if you’re willing, Mr. . . . ?”
Ennis was startled to hear that the speaker was a woman. “Del Mar. Ennis Del Mar. I got a truck I came up in, so I can help with anythin’ needs carryin’.”
“Oh, Mr. Del Mar. We spoke on the phone last night, I think. You called for Jack Twist?” She looked at him with a level, measured gaze, calm in spite of her damp, tangled hair and nearly unrecognizable uniform.
“Uh, yeah,” Ennis replied, feeling suddenly too aware of all these strange faces. What they might think, him calling a man who wasn’t his brother or father. “Came up to visit, but . . . found the fire instead.”
“Well, I’m Julia Ringfeder, the station dispatcher. Jack’s up the mountain a mile or two, working at one of the points where the fire was threatening the main road. He was in one of the first groups to get up there, but from what I hear things are in pretty good shape now. If you come with us, you’ll most likely meet up with him before too much longer.” She paused, looking back at the group around her. “Can you take Steve and Andy in your truck, so we can rendezvous at the next mile marker, find out what needs to be done next? Sound OK?”
“Sure ‘nough,” Ennis said. Two men came forward, nodded at Ennis, and they set off toward the road.
When the three of them reached the truck, Ennis reached into his right hip pocket for the keys, panicked for a moment when they weren’t there, and realized that he must have left them in the ignition when he’d arrived. Pure copper terror had risen up his throat and into his mouth when he’d first seen the flames eating away at the thick bank of trees on both sides of the road. He’d slammed the truck into the first clear spot he could find, grabbed his jacket off the seat, and bolted for the nearest group of laboring firefighters, barely remembering to close the door behind him.
Now he got into the driver’s seat, and first Andy and then Steve crowded in beside him. “Everyone OK?” Ennis asked, and they were off, joining the line of trucks and cars bumping their way farther up the scorching tar road. The air smelled like burnt sugar, even with the windows rolled up, and he had to keep flicking the windshield wipers on to clear off the ash that sifted thickly from the sky. “Where we goin’ exactly, you guys know?” he asked, stealing a quick glance to the side.
“Yeah, just a little ways up here on the left side. See if we can get a place to park, I guess,” Steve said from the door. He had rolled down the window a bit to get some air, and fresh ash was drifting in to form bizarre snowflake patterns on the seat upholstery.
“Sounds good,” Ennis said, turning his attention back to the road. Traffic was moving slowly; that was certainly understandable, given the circumstances, but he was feeling anxious to get out again and see what he could do to find Jack.
“So you’re a friend a Jack’s?” Andy this time, looking at Ennis from under his ranger’s hat.
“Yeah.” Ennis wondered if more explanation was necessary, decided against it.
“You guys know each other from school or what?”
“No, uh . . . we used to work together. Herdin’ sheep, one summer.” Ennis ran a hand back through his hair, then tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“Hmm. Always figured Jack for college or somethin’. He’s a real smart guy.”
“Yeah, he is. I dunno. Probably coulda gone but didn’t have no money. Was always workin’, all the time I knew him.” Ennis surprised himself with this uncharacteristic outpouring of words, but then figured, what the hell? He would never see these people again after this day.
“Don’t I know it. Story a my life, too.” Suddenly Andy leaned forward, craning to see through the smeared windshield. “I think that’s it, up ahead a little. See that green sign there, with the reflectors on the bottom? Get a parkin’ spot near there, ‘n we can see what needs doin’.”
Ennis pulled the truck up to the shoulder, edging it in behind a green van with “Forest Service - Emergency” stenciled on the back in white letters. He turned off the ignition, remembering to pocket the keys this time, and they all clambered out.
Walking toward the group clustered near the sign a few yards ahead of the truck, Ennis was startled to feel a hand on his shoulder. He turned to find Andy beside him again.
“Don’t worry, Ennis,” he said. “I’m sure Jack’s fine. I heard from Julia that he went up with Randall-he’s our boss, the station director-when the fire first got called in. That’s the van they took, actually.”
“Really?” Ennis said, looking at it. He would have passed it by without a second glance, but now the knowledge that Jack had so lately ridden inside it endowed it with a peculiar kind of radiance for him. He felt, ridiculously, like going over to put his hand on the passenger’s-side door.
“Yeah. You two’ll be drinkin’ a couple a cold ones ‘n hittin’ on the chicks in some bar in Taos in no time.” Andy clapped Ennis on the shoulder and moved past him to join the group.
Ennis looked down at the ground for a moment, collecting himself, then marched forward, shoving his hands into his pockets. There was no problem, none at all. As far as Andy was concerned, he and Jack were nothing to each other, really. Just a couple of ordinary guys, looking out for each other like friends were supposed to. Maybe he could mention he’d just seen Lureen the next time they all felt the need to shoot the shit.
“Ennis!” Julia smiled at him from her position near the mile marker, welcoming him into the group. “Glad you found us without too much trouble. Now what kind of experience do you have with emergency situations? Ever worked as an EMT or firefighter before?”
“No ma’am,” Ennis replied, wishing he had gone ahead and enlisted in Riverton’s volunteer fire brigade as Alma had been urging him to. The brigade was sponsored by First Presbyterian, and most of its volunteers were upstanding members of that congregation. During the one conversation he and Alma had had on the subject-more of an argument, really-he had muttered, “That fire ‘n brimstone crowd? Sounds like they got a perfect situation goin’ there already, no need for me to be interferin’,” and that had been the end of it. To Julia, he said, “Sure wish I had, though.”
Julia laughed. Somehow she had managed to wipe the sweat and dirt from her face and smooth her hair into a bun at the base of her neck since their last meeting, and now Ennis noticed that she was really quite a pretty girl. He didn’t spend much time admiring women these days-hadn’t really had much of an eye for anyone since he’d met Jack, to tell the truth-but Julia was something else.
“I’m just kidding, Ennis. The rangers are all trained firefighters, and about half of us are also EMTs, so we’re covered on that end. What we need from you, and from the other civilians, is manpower. We need people to carry water, move vehicles, bring in more supplies from the station when we run low up here, maybe transport someone to a hospital in El Prado if there are cases of smoke inhalation. Think you can manage that?” She was looking at him with wide, patient eyes. They were a rich dark blue. Like Jack’s.
“Yeah, no problem.” Ennis looked down at his feet, shuffled around a little, looked up again. “Thanks for lettin’ me tag along here. Figured there was no point in leavin’ if I could help out at all ‘n still get a chance a seein’ Jack somewhere in here.”
“Oh, you don’t need to have any worries on that score. I’ll make sure you get to see Jack sometime soon. You’ve got my word on it.” Julia looked into Ennis’s eyes for a moment, then back down at her clipboard. “For right now, let’s see . . . why don’t you come with me? I’ve got to do a check on everyone up here, make sure we’ve got an accurate count of who’s working at each point along the road, see if anyone needs anything. This way I can keep my records here and send you back for supplies, emergency kits, or whatever else. Sound OK?”
“Yeah.” Ennis shoved his hands into his pocket again, and they set off along the hot blacktop. After about fifty yards, he spotted a group of rangers, their pale hats caked with ash, stamping a line through the blackened brush at the side of the road. “You know those guys?” he asked.
“Yes,” Julia said. “That looks like John Schultz’s group. Let’s go over and make sure everyone’s doing all right.” She ran up to a tall, gangly man on the end who seemed to be giving orders to the others and grabbed his arm. He turned and leaned down to speak to her. After a minute or so she nodded and motioned Ennis over.
When Ennis reached them, the man looked at him expectantly, holding out a hand for him to shake. “John Schultz,” he said. “Schultzie, more like. ‘S what everyone calls me, anyway. Thanks for comin’ to help us out, friend.”
“No problem,” Ennis said. “Jus’ sorry to see things in such a state.”
Schultzie sighed. “Yeah, me too. It’s my first week a bein’ a full-fledged ranger, jus’ got my certification last Friday. Guess I can’t complain they’re not usin’ my full potential.” He chuckled a little.
“So,” Julia interjected. “What do you guys need now? Or are you set for supplies?”
“No, we need stuff all right. Let’s see . . . think we could use ‘bout two, three more emergency kits-had a couple a bad burns, some scrapes from branches, you know the drill. Also need some more masks, seein’s though they’re all covered with ash now. And you guys got any water in there? This is awful hot work.” Schultzie looked back at the line that was now moving forward without him. “Hey, you guys,” he shouted. “Take five, why doncha? We’re gonna get some more water up here in a minute.”
“What’re you doin’?” Ennis couldn’t resist asking.
“Lookin’ for any residual inflammatories. You know-anythin’ that coulda started the fire in the first place, any live embers, that kinda thing. We’re still not real sure what got things goin’, ‘n we gotta be real careful ‘til the forensics guys get up here. They’re comin’ in from Taos ‘n it might take ‘em a while to get through the roadblocks.”
“OK,” Julia said, flipping through a couple of pages. “Get all your people over here and we’ll take a head count. In the meantime, Ennis can go back to the emergency van and get the kits, the masks, some water bottles. Oh, and Ennis? There’s a box marked ‘sandwiches’ under the driver’s seat. Get about ten out and bring those too. You can put everything into one of the canvas bags hanging from the hooks on the side.”
“Sounds good,” Ennis said. “It unlocked?”
“Good point.” Julia smiled at him. “Here are the keys; lock up afterward and don’t lose them! We’ll be right here when you get back.”
Ennis jogged down to the van, reciting in his head as he went: the number of people in the group, including Schultzie and Julia, the exact items they had asked for. The seat Jack had last sat in, the door handle he had last touched.
Inside the van, the supplies were packed into neatly labeled crates and boxes. Ennis gathered what he needed and fitted it into a gray canvas bag with a green “FS” stenciled on one side. He allowed his hand a brief brush against the passenger’s seat, and that was all. Slinging the bag over one shoulder, he slid the long door closed and locked it carefully.
Everyone was glad to see Ennis return with the supplies and food. The men tore into the sandwiches, not forgetting to offer Ennis one, which he ate with a glad appetite. Julia accepted half a sandwich and ate it between transmissions on her walkie-talkie. After a few minutes, the group, fitted out with fresh masks, headed back to the burn line and began walking it again.
Julia and Ennis continued on toward the other groups of tired, sweaty, bewildered but still cheerful rangers and volunteers. Ennis couldn’t begin to imagine how long they had been pacing out short distances along that stretch of road. At each location, Julia checked off each ranger’s name on a typed list, added in the names of all the volunteers, and had the group leader sign the list. She and Ennis carried supplies, bandaged minor wounds, brought food and water, offered what comfort they could. Ennis learned after his first trip back to the van to bring at least twice the supplies he thought they needed so that Julia could distribute them while he was going back for more. He moved the van again and again, trying to position it where it could do the most good without getting in anyone’s way. They saw few serious injuries but several men were wheezing with smoke inhalation and one had broken an arm when a fire-damaged tree fell on him. Ennis had been ready to drive him to the hospital, in spite of his reluctance to leave the area, but Schultzie, whose group was now filtering up to help some others, had gone in his stead.
Now Julia stood a few yards away from Ennis, looking through the van’s open side door. She was talking into her radio again, but this call seemed a pleasanter one; she was smiling and nodding her head, and once he even heard her laugh. Ennis sighed and stretched, putting his hands on the small of his back. As he tipped his head back, he saw that the sky was tinted a faint pink, shading to indigo near the horizon. It was sunset.
“Ennis!” Julia called suddenly. “Come here, would you?” She said something into the radio, smiled, and looked down at the ground. The toe of her boot traced a circle, around and around a chunk of gravel lying on the sandy, blackened ground.
Puzzled, Ennis joined Julia and looked at the pattern she had gouged in the dirt.
“Yes,” Julia said again, speaking into her radio. “OK, I do . . . I will. Yes, I know! OK, I’ll hold on.” She turned to Ennis. “I was just talking to Mark Goodpastor. His unit met up with Randall Malone’s about an hour ago.” She beamed at Ennis radiantly and waited for him to respond.
“Uh . . .,” Ennis said, uncertain about what the proper reaction should be. “That’s good, right?”
“Oh!” Julia exclaimed. “I forgot. You two didn’t meet yet. Randall is the coordinator of Jack’s rescue group. The two groups have been taking a break together. Mark said he shared a bottle of water with Jack a few minutes ago, in fact. He’s going to get him now so you can talk to him over the radio.”
Relief washed through Ennis, so strongly that his knees trembled. He had to breathe in and out a few times before he could answer Julia. “Well,” he said. “That’s good news, real good. I’m glad to hear that.”
“Here,” she said. “Just wait a minute or two, and Jack should come on. He knows someone wants to speak to him, but he doesn’t know who. I thought it might be nice if he got a little surprise now; he’s had a rough day, from what I hear.”
“He’s OK, though, right?” Ennis asked, too tired to worry about guarding his words. The hand holding the radio to his ear shook a little.
“Yes,” Julia said. She looked directly into Ennis’s eyes again. “He’s fine. And I have a feeling that he’ll be anxious to talk to you too. I saw how he looked when he got off the phone with you last night. He’s a good-natured guy, always cracking a joke and eager to help out, but I’ve never seen him looking really happy since he’s been here. I gather that things weren’t going that well at home before he left. But last night he had the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, and his eyes were sparkling. A little red around the edges, maybe, but full of joy.” She patted Ennis on the shoulder and began to move away, then turned back. “Be kind to him, OK? Jack’s a special man. I haven’t known him long, and it’s easy for me to see that.”
“I plan to,” Ennis mumbled, turning the radio over in his hands. Could he really do this, talk to Jack with all these people around? He had things to say-would he be able to say them after a day like the one they had both just passed, so close together and yet so far away? Longing for one another yet separated by much more than a couple of miles. He looked up to find Julia’s eyes on him. That was OK. The blue in them, so like Jack’s, steadied him somehow. “What should I do with the radio when I’m finished?”
“You can bring it over to the 24-mile marker. That’s where we’re rendezvousing until we get orders from the regional station about what to do next. In fact, you might be able to meet up with Jack there later on. And don’t worry-I set the other channels to block, so you’ve got a private transmission, like your own phone line.” She winked at him, and walked away.
The radio crackled and stuttered. Ennis held it up to his ear and waited patiently, as Julia had told him to do, and finally he heard a faint response. “That’s a ten-four . . . OK, yeah, I got it.” Pause. Then, louder, “Hello?”
“Jack? It’s Ennis.”
“Ennis?” Jack’s astonishment and, Ennis dearly hoped, happiness were clearly audible even through the regular pops of static. “What you doin’ up here?”
“I came to see you, dumbass. ‘Member that? Got up here this mornin’, ‘n found everythin’ in an uproar.” Ennis chuckled at his own word choice. “So to speak. Anyway.” He paused. “How you doin’?”
“I’m OK. . . . We had some near misses there, got surrounded by fire once ‘n I didn’t know what we was gonna do, but turned out all right.”
“Sure glad to hear that.”
Jack was silent for a moment. “Oh hell,” he finally said. “Too damn tired to hide what I mean to say today. Been missin’ you, Ennis. Real bad.”
“Me too, bud,” Ennis replied, his words squeezing past his suddenly clogged throat. “Me too.” He coughed into his fist, trying to clear his throat, but then was unable to stop coughing, his lungs complaining at the hours-long onslaught of ash and tarry resin filtering through the air.
“Hey,” Jack said, anxiety chopping his speech into short bursts of sound. “Hey. Ennis? You OK? Need some help? I can call someone up real quick, get ‘em to take me down there. Got some EMT trainin’ last week.”
“No,” Ennis managed at last, forcing himself to breathe more slowly. “I’m all right. Jus’ been breathin’ in the same crap as you all day. Guess this teaches me a lesson, don’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“Need to cut out the smokin’. Hate to think this’s what my lungs’ll feel like one day.” He sighed, swung around slowly to see if anyone was standing nearby, and sat down on the ground next to one of the few trees still standing at this location. Leaning his back against the trunk, he sighed again. “Ain’t had a smoke since last night anyway, I don’t think. That’s ‘bout as good as quittin’ for me already.”
“I told you I quit ‘fore I left. Never felt as good as I do now. Except, well . . . you know.” Jack sighed, too, and fell silent.
Ennis sat listening to Jack’s breathing over the radio for a few moments, enjoying the familiar, comfortable silence that they had always been able to spin out between them. Though Jack had won his friendship with his nonstop conversation and over-the-top tomfoolery-rodeo-cowboy fuckup, he thought, and grinned-he had also known when to just let Ennis be. Especially after they had come to mean somewhat more to each other than two guys herding sheep generally did, Jack had a good sense of when Ennis might like to spend time resting with his head in Jack’s lap, looking up at the stars, or when he might like Jack to hold him for long, dream-still hours in the tent.
“So,” Jack finally said. “You mentioned last night you got somethin’ to say. Feel like sharin’ it now? Know you had a hard day ‘n all, though; I’d understand if maybe you just wanted to say hey and that was it.”
“No, uh . . . I got somethin’ to say, that’s the truth,” Ennis replied. His palms were sweating, and he clamped the radio between his ear and his shoulder so he could wipe his hands on his jeans.
“Yeah?”
“I got a story I been wantin’ to tell you, actually.” Ennis coughed again, briefly, and closed his eyes.
“A story?”
“Yeah . . . somethin’ that happened while we was campin’ back in June, actually.”
“OK.” Pause. “This a funny story or one that shows how much a fuckup yours truly really is? Got me singin’ one a those old hymns or fallin’ on my ass?”
“No, Jack,” Ennis said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It’s . . . serious, I guess. You ready to listen?”
“Yeah, I am. Sorry.”
“No,” Ennis said again. “I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s just that . . . I shoulda told you this before. Wanna make it up to you.”
A man in torn, blackened jeans and a blue parka was walking up the road toward Ennis, who tensed, waiting to be told that he needed to surrender the radio. When the man nodded briefly and continued past him, though, Ennis relaxed again.
“You still there, bud?” came Jack’s voice over the radio.
“Yeah. Listen, it’s nothin’ big, just somethin’ I thought you should know. Remember when you said you couldn’t sleep? That second mornin’ we was up on the mountain?”
“I do.”
“Well, you did drift off there, at least for a little while. Woke up ‘round dawn, and you was snugged up tight against my back. Had one arm around me, hand under my shirt.”
“Well, damn,” Jack laughed. “Gets cold up there at night!”
Jack’s hand resting against his bare skin, fingers tickling the line of hair that ran down his stomach and disappeared into his jeans. The stiffness of Jack’s morning erection pressing into his own ass.
“I just laid there for a while, listenin’ to you breathe. Wishin’ we never had to leave. Seemed like the place I spent my whole life tryin’ to get to.”
“Ennis.” Jack’s voice was husky now. “Means . . . means more’n I can say to hear that from you.”
“I took your hand, pulled it down a little farther. Put it, uh, down below.”
“You did, huh? You rascal.”
“Just stayed there for a while, feelin’ your hand on me. Your chest risin’ ‘n fallin’, ‘gainst my back. Could feel you wasn’t too sorry ‘bout bein’ that close to me, too, if you know what I mean.”
The warm weight of Jack’s hand pressed between his legs. His senses flaring into life: heart beating faster, breaths coming short and rapid, blood surging to his nether regions.
“Shoulda woken me up, coulda done somethin’ ‘bout it.”
“Seemed like all I needed at the time, though. You near me, the world wakin’ up ‘round us. There was . . . there was a kind a energy or somethin’, comin’ up through the ground.” Ennis pressed his lips together, frustrated. “Sounds kinda dumb like that, I know, but I could feel it. You was part of it, givin’ that energy to me.”
“So you just laid there, feelin’ good, ‘n that was it? That’s the story?”
“No, not ‘xactly. I turned around to face you, real slow, so’s not to wake you up or nothin’. I put my hand down, found your zipper, and mine too. I . . . I unzipped us both, and pulled up our shirts, and . . . held you. Wrapped my arms ‘round you. Just wanted to feel you that close to me, close as you could get. See if I could share that same energy or whatever it was with you, too. Put my heart ‘gainst yours.” Ennis squeezed his eyes shut, reliving the memory.
Jack’s body pressed to his, their bellies meeting in a hot firm line, their dicks melded like the sun. Ennis’s body crying out for release, his heart feeling peace at last.
Jack was silent for a moment; then Ennis heard him clear his throat. “Ennis, I don’t know what to say. I had no idea you was . . . feelin’ that way. Thank . . . thank you. For tellin’ me.” His voice was small and raspy.
“Well, I, uh, got lots a stories to tell you. Hope we still got time to do that. . . . For now, got somethin’ else to say, too.” Ennis’s heart was racing suddenly, and he could feel beads of sweat standing out on his forehead.
“Yeah?”
Ennis opened his eyes and saw a small group of rangers standing about a hundred yards up from him, talking and rummaging through their packs. “Well, . . . nothin’, I guess. Not nothin’, I mean, but . . . can wait ‘til I see you. Rather say it in person anyway.” He sniffed and armed sweat off his face.
“Gonna see you soon, though. Gonna hold you down ‘til you say it, just warnin’ you,” Jack said. Ennis could hear a smile in his voice. “I got the whole next day off, after we get the all-clear from regional. Randall says so. Whaddya say we meet back down at the station in ‘bout an hour?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I want. I . . . I’m lookin’ forward to it, Jack.” He stood up and looked around, careful not to jostle the radio. “I better go give the radio back to Julia now. She probably thinks I just walked off with it or somethin’.”
Jack laughed. “OK. See you in a bit, then. ‘N tell Julia I said hey. She’s quite a lady, ain’t she?”
“Yeah,” Ennis said. “She’s somethin’, all right.” He looked down at the ground, remembering. “Got blue eyes, like yours.”
“Don’t need to be jealous or nothin’ now, do I?”
“Dumbass.”
Jack chuckled. “OK, then, Ennis. See you.”
The radio crackled one last time, and the transmission cut off. Immediately Ennis could hear voices on other channels. He headed up to the point where Julia had said she’d meet him, walking slowly and thinking. How could he show Jack his mind was made up this time? How would their parting be different this time?
Ennis realized that Julia was nowhere in sight. Figuring she must have left on another errand, he chose a man wearing a silver badge on his uniform and tapped him on the shoulder. “‘Scuse me, sir. Lookin’ for Julia. She let me borrow this radio ‘n asked me to give it back up here.”
“Julia ain’t here right now. She hadta go get somethin’ from Mark Goodpastor. If you know what I mean.” He winked hugely at Ennis, his bloodshot eye seeming to twinkle with misplaced cheer. “I can take it, though.” He took the radio, then held out his other hand. “Randall Malone. Station director. And you are-?”
“Ennis Del Mar. Just came up to see a friend a mine, Jack Twist. Got caught in the middle a things, wanted to see if I could help out.” Ennis shook his hand.
“Jack, huh?” Randall was looking at him with an expression that Ennis couldn’t read. “Well, doubt if Jack’s gonna be able to see anyone here for a while.”
“Why’s that?” Ennis felt his recently revived spirits take a nose dive.
“Fire control duty. He’s comin’ with me to comb through the debris on peaks five and seven. Gotta see what kinda madman started this mess.” Randall grinned. Ennis could see flakes of ash on his front teeth.
“Sure I can’t talk to him for a minute ‘fore you leave?” Ennis was panicking, certain that he couldn’t wait another hour, much less an unspecified number of days, before seeing Jack again.
“But that’s what you been doin’, talkin’, am I right? No, Ennis, we’re already on our way out. Truth is, Jack’s left. Hung up the walkie-talkie and headed out. I’m goin’ to meet him right now. I’d ask you to come with-but official Service business, you know. Can’t.” He clapped Ennis on the shoulder, still grinning. “Be sure ‘n tell him you said howdy, though.” The radio already hung on his belt squawked; he brought it up to his ear, listened for a moment, then strode away.
Ennis looked after him, his shoulder burning where Randall had touched it. He was unable to move. The world spun on its axis, the planets rotated through their orbits, the sun illuminated first one side of the earth and then the other, bringing life to an endless series of days. But he was a star, fixed and hanging in space, his light having traveled through the cold, echoing emptiness millennia ago.